As broadcast television becomes increasingly sophisticated by augmenting content based on supplemental data sources and camera tracking technology, there is a general desire to open up the possibilities for visual enhancements. Virtual set and movie special effects technology is leading to advanced camera tracking techniques that facilitate the integration of live video into synthetic environments by adapting the synthetic content to camera data (e.g. position, orientation, field of view). Thus the instrumentation of cameras for precise tracking is advancing.
Other technologies such as the new Zcam camera (Zcam is a trademark of 3DV Systems, Ltd.) is beginning to illustrate how depth information can become a first class data source for fusing synthetic content with video. Unfortunately Zcam and other methods of depth extraction (such as image disparity) are currently constrained to a limited volume for acquisition of depth information. The typical acquisition ranges of such technologies vary from a few square meters up to a volume commensurate to that of an indoor studio. The quality of depth reconstruction provided by such systems diminishes as it scales up. Thus these solutions do not scale up to levels where they can be applied to sports venues such as stadiums and racetracks. Modem sports entertainment programming features significant broadcast production enhancements. These enhancements affect both the audio and visual aspects of the coverage. Graphical displays-and audio samples and sound bites are routinely employed to enliven a broadcast's production. However these enhancements generally are not directed by the sports viewer at home.
Traditionally, sport viewers at home rely on the television broadcaster to, provide them with the best coverage available at any given moment. Functioning as a director, the broadcaster will switch from one camera feed to another depending on the events occurring on the field. With the emergence of DTV (digital television) broadcasting, the broadband viewers may have the opportunity to receive multiple camera feeds and be able to navigate amongst them. Still, the coverage of a sporting event is always limited by the fixed number of cameras set up for the event.
The home viewer is not currently able to choose on field activity on which they would like to focus if this activity is not included in the normal broadcast coverage. As there may be event activity occurring outside of the normal broadcast coverage (or that is made possible by multiple camera feeds), on which the home viewer places significant value, traditional broadcast coverage many times proves inadequate.